The
Qalqalah Mechanism

To
understand this tidbit lesson, please make sure you have read and understood
the two lessons on the mechanism for articulation of letters (lessons
14 and 15 from the top of the archive page), located in the tidbit archive
section.

Letters
other than the three medd letters which have no vowels are produced by
collision (
) of the two components of
the articulating parts Voweled letters on the other hand are produced by
parting of the two components of the articulating parts
().The
medd and leen letters are produced by vibration of the vocal cords.Letters are divided into three groups when categorized
according to the length of running of their sound.

1.Letters of strength (
).The sound does not run at all when these letters are
articulated without a vowel (saakinah), the articulation point is completely
closed when a letter of this group is saakin.There are eight letters in this group.They are the letters in the phrase: or as
stated in the Jazariyyah
prose:

,
meaning its [letters of] strength are in the phrase .

2.Letters in Between. (
) These letters are
pronounced with sound running in between the characteristic of imprisonment
in the letters
and the running of sound in the letters.The letters of this group are five in number:.

3.Letters of softness ()
These letters have clear and obvious running of the sound when they are
articulated without a vowel (saakinah).Examples are in the following three saakin letters
that are in the category of :. Each of
these three letters in the example should have a running of the sound,
longer than saakin letters of the other two groupsThe letters of this group are all the letters remaining when taking
out the letters of
and
.

The
Qalqalah

The
letters of qalqalah are in the group , these
letters are all in the group of letters.If we attempt to
say one of these five qalqalah letters with a sukoon, we would find that the
articulation point closes completely, and that it causes an annoyance in the
articulation mechanism.This is
due to imprisonment of the sound behind the articulation point. When these
same five letters have vowels, we do not find this annoyance because voweled
letters are pronounced parting of the two components of the articulating
parts().The Arabs, due to the annoyance and difficulty in pronouncing these
five letters when saakinah, have violated the rule that saakinah
letters are articulated by
collision between the two articulating bodies of articulation, ().Instead, these letters are articulated by
separation of the two articulating parts of articulation (),
the same as voweled letters, but without any corresponding
movement of the mouth and jaw that is associated with voweled letters.

Chart
comparing the to
voweled letters and non-voweled letters

Voweled
letters

Qalqalah
()
letters when saakinah

Saakinah
letters

The are emitted by separation
(
) of the two parts of
articulation

The are emitted by separation
(
) of the two parts of
articulation

The are emitted by collision
()of the two parts of
articulation

Accompanying
movement:

1.Opening
of the mouth (for the fat-h)

2.Circling
of the mouth for the dhammah

3.Lowering
of the jaw for the kasrah

Nothing
(no mouth or jaw movement) accompanies it

Nothing
accompanies it( no mouth or jaw movement)

From
this chart we can see that a qalqalahletter is similar to a saakin
letter, in that there is no accompanying jaw and mouth movement with it.On the other hand, it is unlike the saakin letter in that the qalqalahis articulated by
separation
()of the two parts of
articulation.The qalqalah letter is similar to the voweled
letter since they both are articulated separation
(
) of the two parts of articulation,
but unlike it since the qalqalah has no accompanying jaw and mouth movement and the
voweled letter does.

The
definition of qalqalah is as
follows:

Its linguistic definition: shaking,
disturbance

Its
applied definition: Disturbance of the letter when it is in the
state of being non-voweled until a strong accent is heard when it is
articulated by parting of the two components of the articulating parts, not
by collision, without accompanying it any opening of the mouth, or circling
of the lips, or lowering of the jaw.

A
very important note: Theqalqalahdoes not resemble
a fat-h or a dhammah
or a kasrah.It
does not follow the vowel of the preceding letter, nor the following letter.

If
the qalqalah letters have a shaddahindicating merging of two of
the same letter (),
the first letter of the shaddah(which is saakin) is then articulated by
collision, or .For example: and .If we are stopping on the first word in the previous example, the
first of the word is
pronounced by collision, or, and the second is
recited with a qalqalah.This
means that the qalqalah
is pronounced with without any accompanying mouth and jaw movement.The of
the word would
be the same as thein
the word .

The
Qalqalah is divided into two classes: The Lesser and Greater Qalqalah

The
Lesser Qalqalah
: This
occurs whenthe qalqalahin is the middle of a word, or at the end of a word, and we are not
stopping on that word. In this case we say the qalqalah, and immediately
proceed to the next letter, or word. i.e. and

The
Greater Qalqalah
: This
happens when the qalqalah is
the last letter of a word, and we are stopping on that word.For example:
.

The
difference between the two divisions is that there is more of a ring to the greater
qalqalah
because we are stopping on it, than there is on the lesser qalqalah.